


This Christmas Present

by Britpacker



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Fluff and Smut, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:20:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21850618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Trip Tucker hasn’t been the easiest man to love over the past couple of years.  Shore leave on a winter wonderworld may be his chance to show someone how grateful he is for sticking at it.
Relationships: Malcolm Reed/Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	1. 23rd July, 2155

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the “proper” series end (given that I refuse to acknowledge the official final episode), and simply because if anyone deserves a happy extra Christmas, it’s Malcolm.

The minute he entered Engineering he knew. This wasn’t a routine request from the Chief Engineer to his captain. “Problem, Commander?”

Trip Tucker vaulted down from the upper level with much too big a grin plastered across his face. “Thanks for comin’ down so fast, Cap’n,” he hollered, already angling himself toward the compact private office he usually avoided this time of the month, until his system performance reports were overdue. Deciding it was wisest to avoid a potential scene, Jonathan Archer allowed himself to be guided, holding off the eye-roll and arm-cross until there was a solid metal door between him and his crew.

“What do you want, Trip?” he stated, not bothering to keep hide his amusement. The good-looking blond flushed to the roots of his immaculately groomed hair.

“That obvious, huh?” he questioned. Archer nodded. “Oops. In that case… you mind if I borrow your private comm? And maybe a shuttlepod, just for a day?”

Now it made sense, but Archer had no intention of letting his old friend off easy. “This has something to do with the Aldari government’s offer of shore leave, right?”

“You read me like a book, Cap’n.” Resigning himself to the inevitable, Tucker perched on the edge of his desk and met his commanding officer’s inscrutable green gaze as boldly as he dared. “Malcolm and I are on the same rotation, see, and I thought…”

Behind the bravado lurked an uncertainty that twisted Archer’s battered heart. _When did he get so careful around me? We used to be so close!_

The day he had appointed his best friend as his subordinate officer, Jonathan Archer had told the whole of Starfleet there would never be a conflict of interest: and he’d been right. 

He just hadn’t appreciated the cost of keeping it that way.

He’d been professional. Treated his honorary little brother like any other member of his senior staff. The chief engineer had never sought a favour. And somehow, without Archer even noticing, Trip had become the uniform. The Enterprise sleeve patch. Until – maybe – now.

“Trip, unless you’re planning to fly Pod One into an ion storm for the sake of a good explosion, you’ve got it,” he promised, too stricken by the realisation to consider the potential enormity of his expansive words. “Have you cleared this with Malcolm?”

“Not yet.” The tight lines around Tucker’s mouth relaxed with his cautious smile. “It’s gonna be a surprise.”

_No wonder he’s worried!_ “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Archer tried carefully. “Malcolm likes a plan…”

“Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing, Cap’n.” For an instant the old Trip Tucker, cocky grin and all, shone through the carapace of formality. “I got this _all_ planned out. I owe him a good time after…”

“All the crap you’ve put him through?”

_Damn_. As fast as it had appeared, the old joviality faded away. “Yessir. So – five minutes with the secure channel, then a pod for twenty-four hours?”

“Not a minute longer, Commander.” No details. Archer knew better than to ask for what once would have been his due. “Was there anything else?”

“No sir.” At the gusty confirmation he spun on his heel, desperate for the safety of the bridge and the condescending company of his recently re-Vulcanised First Officer, only to be stopped dead by a soft-spoken farewell from his host. “Thanks, Jon.”

Suddenly T’Pol’s droned report from the big chair didn’t seem as enticing. And maybe Trip and Malcolm’s wasn’t the only repairable relationship on board after all.


	2. 24th July (or is it December?) 2155

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's planned every last detail. All Trip can do now is hope Malcolm approves...

“Trip?” 

Lieutenant Malcolm Reed dropped the rucksack from his shoulders, cocked his head and waited for the echo of his crisp call to fade from the cavernous launch bay. “Where is everybody?”

Before the question could die it was overlapped by a cheery halloo from somewhere deep inside the single pod awaiting take-off. “C’mon, Malcolm, we’re cleared for launch in two minutes!” Tucker exclaimed, poking a ruffled head out the open hatch. As he took in the Englishman’s casual attire – short-sleeved cotton shirt and jeans, nothing in Reed’s opinion to merit comment – his beaming smile got stuck. “Uh, maybe you should put this on.”

A bulky parka lined with synthetic fur was thrust his way and, too stunned to do otherwise, Reed shucked into it. “Bit much for a beach, don’t you think?” he commented as his pack was seized and efficiently stowed behind the auxiliary pilot’s seat. “You flying?”

“You just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride, darlin’.” No questions. No bristling suspicion. If he hadn’t known Jonathan Archer better, Tucker would have suspected his captain of an indiscretion.

“We’re not going to Aldari Sonna?”

“Nope.”

“But it’s got beaches a thousand kilometres long. Palm trees. Eighteen-hour days of guaranteed sunshine.”

Trip beamed. “I know, now strap in, willya? Bridge, this is Shuttlepod Two. Standing by for launch.”

The monotone drone of Crewman Hollis crackled over the comm. “All clear, Commander. Have a pleasant vacation.”

“It’s only an overnighter, isn’t it?” Suddenly anxious, Reed started up in his seat, pushing against his launch restraints. “I’ve only packed one pair of knickers…”

“Relax, Mal. We’re due back nineteen-hundred hours tomorrow. You trust me, dontcha?”

Immediately the words were out, bitter as a week-old espresso, he ached to swallow them back. “Of course,” the armoury officer muttered, fascinated by the auxiliary pilot’s readout. Inside the safety of his skull, Trip Tucker screamed.

Malcolm had given his trust unreservedly, once. He’d sworn to treasure the gift, understanding its preciousness; the cost of its bestowing. Then he threw it away.

That the wariest of men was prepared to forgive – to try again – was more than Charles Tucker the Third had dared hope for in his darkest hours. This brief vacation was meant to demonstrate what his tongue would foul up, if he was dumb enough to try expressing it.

How much Malcolm Reed’s generous spirit humbled him. How determined he was never to reopen those old, still-raw wounds. And before they were even out of the launch bay, he’d screwed up.

Resisting the family tendency to pick up his spade and keep digging, Trip bit hard into his tongue and set the craft into motion, forcing himself not to hear his companion’s shaky exhale. 

_This is going to work. He’ll love it. Long as I can keep my feet out of my mouth for a full twenty-four hours!_

*

He set the pod down with only the smallest of skids in the middle of a snowy clearing deep in the forests of Aldari Sneebal, all business as he powered the little craft down. “There’s flashlights in the pack,” he offered shyly, aware of a tightness in his guts that usually accompanied the first strike of a weapon off Enterprise’s hull. Reed cocked an eyebrow.

“What’s going on, Trip?” he asked mildly.

It was the quiet confidence in the question that broke him, the opposite of the wary scepticism he deserved after the last year and a half. “I wanna give you a good vacation, Malcolm,” Tucker admitted, hangdog. “And I jus’ thought… hell, your ideal vacation back home’s a month in the Alps, not laying on a beach! I thought maybe you’d prefer...”

“Oh, I would! But what about...”

“Me?”

Reed bit his bottom lip. “Aw, Malcolm I’m sorry!” Trip yelped, flinging himself clumsily across the cabin at the smaller man and landing half in his lap, making him squeak with a combination of shock and the sudden weight crushing his chest. “I’m a selfish bastard I know, but I’m trying to put that right for once. I wanna do it your way, instead of just… expectin’ you to do what I want. You – you don’t mind?”

“Oh, Trip.” The words creaked from a tightened throat and awkwardly Reed hugged the blond, hiding his stinging eyes against a brawny shoulder. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me! Thank you.”

“C’mon, we’d better git goin’ before the snow starts again.” T’Pol, when approached for advice, had estimated a thirty-minute window of better weather around this time each day. “Grab the pack.”

“I hope you’ve brought spare woollies for me.” Gratefully Malcolm snatched at the raspy normality, hesitating just long enough to pull up his hood before unlocking the capsule and scrambling out, his casual brogues slipping slightly against the sparkling top layer of frosted snow. “This is glorious! I assume there’s a cottage or something down that track?”

“It’s damn cold.” For a moment Tucker regretted his generous impulse, envisioning the sun-kissed splendour of Aldari Sonna’s white-gold beaches. Reed slapped a gloved hand down into his, broad smile as dazzling as the pristine blanket underfoot, and the image dissolved. “This way.”

A single track banked with pillowy snowdrifts cut through thick pinewoods, and carefully the two men picked their way along it, clouds of frozen breath billowing ahead. Trip kept his eyes down, narrowly focussed on the crunch and crackle of the unstable top layers of white stuff. Malcolm, despite ordinary soles lacking the stout tread of his companion’s sturdy boots, positively capered along, peering through the forest and pausing now and then to snap off an icicle from the branches and rub its point lasciviously over his numb lips. 

Ahead of them lights sparkled in the lower boughs, twinkling like a galaxy of golden stars against the velvet black of the trees. The path opened out into a circular clearing and at its heart, blazing with amber light and decorated with a lush arch of evergreen boughs over the porch, stood a neat stone and thatch structure lifted straight from the world of the Brothers Grimm. “Sonofabitch!”

“I take it the Commander approves?” 

“It didn’t look that pretty on the pictures.” Embarrassed, Tucker huffed an enormous cloud of iced breath. Malcom chuckled.

“Should’ve packed a phase pistol – just in case the Big Bad Wolf’s got here before us,” he added hurriedly. Trip snorted, bustling him forward through the downy snowdrifts that gathered in the lee of the walls.

“Only you, Malcolm,” he murmured, so fond it brought tears to the Brit’s eyes that froze instantly on his long lashes. “C’mon. Cap’n let me use the transporter before we left, but we need to get the stasis trays unpacked soon as possible, Chef said.”

Before he’d thumbed the access pad, Tucker knew his rapid-fire patter hadn’t worked. Reed stopped dead, oblivious to the first fine flakes of an oncoming blizzard beginning to drift around him. “Oh he did, did he?” he drawled, refusing to budge when his companion all but fell over the doorstep into a brightly square lobby festooned with ribbons, lights and hanging pine boughs. “Charles Tucker the bloody Third, what _are_ you playing at?”

Well, this was it. _Time to come clean._ “Merry Christmas, darlin’.”

If a whole sky full of snow had chosen that exact moment to dump itself on him Malcolm couldn’t have looked more thunderstruck. “Er, Trip? It’s July,” he croaked at the third attempt. The blond grinned.

“Back home it is,” he admitted. “And I guess technically that means up there…” gesturing toward whichever bright dot in the night sky might be Enterprise. “But I figured… I’ve been a selfish, miserable asshole for the last couple ‘f years, and I’ve treated the best thing that ever happened to me like shit off the end of my shoe. I owe you a happy Christmas, Malcolm Reed, and this looked like the perfect place to find one.”

“Oh, Trip!” There were times the insensitive clodhopping Yank deserved firing out of the nearest torpedo tube: but they were easily matched, Reed conceded, by the moments he just wanted to snog the adorable sod to exhaustion. “You don’t owe me anything, but… thank you! I can’t think of anywhere better to spend Christmas Eve – it _is_ Christmas Eve, I take it?”

“It can be whatever you want, long as we eat Chef’s special dinner before we go back,” Trip promised expansively. Malcolm snickered, breezing by him and dumping his coat on an ornately curling stair rail. 

“Threatened you, did he?”

“Meatloaf for two weeks unless the trays go back scraped clean,” Tucker confessed gloomily. “It’d better be worth it! You want some spiced wine?”

“Earth or local?”

“Local.”

“In that case, I’d love some.” Chef’s idiosyncratic take on the classic alpine _Glühwein_ having, in Malcolm’s words, gone down like a cup of stale dog-vomit in past years, Tucker had leapt at his Aldari contact’s offer of some local festival cheer. Ambling into the large main lounge-cum-dining room, the Englishman gave vent to a long, low whistle. 

“How much extra power did you have to promise the old bugger to get this? That crate’s big enough to fit Christmas dinner for the whole of Security in, and you know how much they eat!”

“You know he’s been bitchin’ about his hot plates since the first breakfast outta spacedock? Well, I’ve promised to fix ‘em up right for him next chance I get.” Delicately brimming an elaborate silver goblet with gemstones sparkling in its stem, Tucker leaned in to brush a kiss against his lover’s flushed cheek. “You wanna explore while I unpack?”

“I’d rather watch you I think.” The heat emanating from the room’s big open fireplace was restoring tingly feeling around his numbed lips and cautiously Malcolm ran his tongue around them, realising too late the effect of the gesture on his goggle-eyed partner. “On second thoughts… I’d really rather kiss you, if you wouldn’t mind _too_ much.”

“Be mah guest.” Chef’s displeasure forgotten Trip puckered up and ducked his loftier head, closing his eyes as he melted into the brunet’s passionate embrace. He was vaguely aware of movement; of the universe tilting on its axis, but only when Malcolm drew back, his dreamy sigh ghosting over Tucker’s parted lips, did the Southerner realise why.

Somehow, Reed had manipulated them down onto the single shabby couch that stretched across the flagged hearth, ending up full length beneath the burlier man. “I’m going to enjoy this Christmas, Trip,” he murmured, letting his fingertips drift across the engineer’s perfect, even features. “But I didn’t bring you a present…”

“You gave me the best present ever when you took me back, Mister Reed.” Snuggled in his arms, feeling the warmth of the other man’s breath against his chin as he began to drown in those stormy-ocean eyes, Trip felt his chest tighten up so hard he could barely breathe. “And I don’t know how you could’ve done it after all I did…”

“Because, believe it or not, I was even more fucking miserable after you ended it than I was when you were just pushing me away.” This dark cloud, Reed realised, had been hanging over them both since the moment he’d pulled the contrite Southerner into his arms in the observation lounge six astonishing weeks ago, stopping his stream of self-loathing with the longest, sweetest kiss of his entire life. 

It had to be blown away now. Before it ruined their summer Christmas in a winter paradise. 

“Guess my sleepin’ with T’Pol didn’t make you feel any better.”

“Nor did seeing you trailing after her like a lovesick puppy for the best part of a year after she dumped you.” At least he’d been spared the humiliation of a public rejection in the mess hall: not that everyone on board hadn’t known the Armoury Officer’s belongings were all back in his own quarters. Cautiously, as if he were approaching a wounded bear, Reed ran a gentle hand down his lover’s flank, anchoring him at the hip when Tucker might have pulled away. “But that’s all in the past now. You came back. That’s all that matters.”

“You took me back,” Trip corrected wonderingly, stilled by the consoling touch. “And I still can’t figure out how you did that.”

“I love you. Always have, always will, even when you’re being an _utter_ arsehole.”

Privately Tucker figured he’d been a whole lot worse than that, but this didn’t feel like the time to enumerate all his sins. “Once I accepted that, it became easier to cope with the pain, I suppose,” Malcolm continued, almost dreamy. “I couldn’t hate you for mooning over the Vulcan goddess and hate her for hurting you at the same time, could I? The only way it made sense was to admit I love you, whether you want me to or not. I never dreamed…”

“I’ve been such a jerk.” The admission, hardly uncommon, had never been more heartfelt. “Pushin’ you away when all I wanted to do was hold you and howl. Windin’ up in bed with T’Pol because she came onto me and I was jus’ too tired and too damn _dumb_ to say no. And I never stopped lovin’ you, Malcolm, I swear it. I just… couldn’t see it.”

“We’re together now.” Necessary or not, this conversation was opening fissures in wounds still barely healed, for both of them. Tenderly Reed laid a finger over his lover’s mouth, only to shiver to his toes when it opened to lovingly suckle the length. 

Moving cautiously, he shifted beneath Tucker’s restraining weight, positioning himself to replace finger with tongue in a deep, hard, utterly possessive kiss. Fire lapped down his throat, the ticklish sensation of wet, supple muscles rubbing together reverberating down to his bowels. “Want you,” he murmured when, all too soon, he was allowed up for air.

“You got me. Always.” Still, even Trip couldn’t pretend to be that dense. Nimble fingers got busy on too many layers of cloth, worming their way to tickle bare skin. Malcolm mewed into his mouth. “More?”

“Oh, always more.” 

Languid, unhurried, they squirmed and writhed themselves naked, glorying in the freedom from rush that too often accompanied their couplings on Enterprise. Undressing while horizontal became its own form of foreplay, both men giggling hysterically as they wriggled off each other’s socks and portions of their anatomies, noses to toes and all points in between, made unexpected, stimulating contact. Time slowed down. Tucker couldn’t have said if he’d been laying there, just enjoying the glorious body of his soulmate, for minutes, hours or days.

By the time they were totally nude he’d gotten way past pure physical arousal. He was happy. Slow, easy friction; skin against hair-spattered skin. Nirvana. Paradise. Whatever it was called, he’d found it. “Love you,” he breathed, needing to hear the words. Wanting them hanging in the air as he dove in for another long, slow smooch.

He felt the weight of Reed’s arms on his back; the feather touch of fingers grazing the hollow above his buttocks. And the man’s answer, trapped in the cavern of his mouth. “Love you too.”

Once, he’d have wanted – needed – more. Needed to feel Mal’s tight channel spasm around his rock-hard erection, hear his voice break on a scream as the climax overwhelmed him. Now – now, the slow-burn of body rubbing body, the gentle whisper of a sigh against the base of his throat, was more than enough. 

It was Eternity.

When it took him, the climax was as gentle as a petal falling from the rose; as soft as the teardrops that danced on his eyelids. Malcolm purred through release beneath him, undulating softly as he unconsciously prolonged its sweetness. If he could bottle the feeling, Tucker mused, faintly surprised by his own whimsy, he’d make a fortune.

Flickering firelight danced patterns of shadow over their tangled bodies. “Likin’ your vacation so far?” Trip rumbled. Malcolm’s whole length rippled.

“Very much,” he confirmed softly. “What’s for dinner?”

“Roast turkey, sage and onion stuffing, cranberry sauce – the works.”

“No Christmas Pudding, I hope?”

“Chocolate fudge cake.”

“You, sir, are an officer and a gentleman.” Of course, eating all that lovely food would require moving, but Reed figured some sacrifices had to be made. “And I don’t know about you – it must be the cold – but I’m starving!”

*

Chef, Tucker had to admit, had earned his hot plates. Christmas dinner – accompanied by sappy festive songs played through the cottage’s sound system – was a masterpiece. “If I get meatloaf for a month I won’t complain,” Malcolm announced, slouching back in his seat and surreptitiously loosening his belt. “That was bloody lovely.”

“More wine?”

“Why not? It’s Christmas!”

That was when Trip realised he’d probably been refilling his companion’s glass just a bit too readily through the meal. Malcolm only got _that_ giggle when a little too much liquor had been consumed.

“We got movies too. The Santa Clause, It’s A Wonderful Life…”

“Casablanca?”

“Not this time.” He was emotional enough already, and Tuckers were raised to know their limits. Malcolm grunted.

“S’pose that means there’s no explosions either.”

“Wall to wall festive cheer, darlin’. Just like bein’ back home in December.”

“Have I ever told you, I hate Christmas?”

Trip planted a noisy kiss on the wrinkling nose. “Liar.”

“I do!” Greedily sucking his goblet – Trip made a mental note to hide the second cask their hosts had thoughtfully provided – Malcolm produced a monumental pout. “The other one – December, I mean. With all the overcrowded shops and the sickly sentimental music you can’t escape from. This one’s lovely. We should do it again.”

“You got yourself a deal.” Okay, so next time he’d stick to classic Bond or black-and-white British war movies. “Umm, we don’t have to watch any of them…”

“You choose.” Warm, replete, and just tipsy enough to be generous, Malcolm shuffled onto a corner of the couch and patted the cushions at his side. Automatically Trip selected his favourite of them all. 

“Can’t beat a little Jimmy Stewart at Christmastime,” he said comfortably. Reed grunted.

“Cheers! Pass the gingerbread, will you?”

Obligingly Trip dragged the platter of cookies across to rest on his partner’s knees. “Help yourself,” Malcolm invited. 

As if he’d come between Mal and his one good meal of the year, Tucker thought fondly, aware his lover had eaten more in the past hour than he usually fitted in an entire day. Draping an arm over the brunet’s shoulders he shuffled his ass down deeper into the cushions and let the old movie drift through his consciousness.

It took him an hour to realise the solemn, repetitive crunch of gingerbread had stopped. He missed the rest of the show in favour of watching Malcolm sleeping in his hold instead.

So open. So trusting. Even now.

_I don’t deserve this!_

When the credits rolled, he risked a gentle shake. “C’mon, Sleepyhead. Bedtime.”

“Whaa?” Groggy, Malcolm stretched in his arms, bewilderment lingering just a sweet second before the full horror of what he’d done sank in. “Bollocks, I fell asleep! Trip I’m so sorry! I can’t believe I could be so rude…”

“You’re on vacation, Malcolm. You’re s’posed to eat, drink and sleep all you want.” Of course, it would be a shocking breach of Reed etiquette to doze off during a movie he hadn’t wanted to watch in the first place. Emotion closed Trip’s throat and he bought himself time with a fond ruffle of shiny dark hair. “I’m just happy you’re comfortable enough to fall asleep on me, that’s all.”

“I’ve never met a better pillow.” At least he hadn’t drooled, Malcolm decided. The embarrassment was…

Non-existent. How could he feel shame when Trip was gazing at him with such complete adoration?

“You can sleep on me anytime, Mister Reed,” the Southerner murmured, gathering the slighter man onto his lap and hugging him tight. “I know I can’t undo all the wrong I did you – the Expanse, T’Pol, the way I treated you when Lizzie died, it’ll haunt me ‘til my dyin’ day, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about it now. All I can do, right now, is show you how much I love you.”

“Shush love, I know.” A fingertip ghosted over his lips and he revelled in the tremor his flickering tongue shot through the body in his lap. “We’re together now. You came back to me, and that tells me all I need to know. Bed?”

“Bed.” They’d have time for sex – lots of it, hot and hard or slow and easy – tomorrow, Trip told himself, relaxing his grip long enough to let the love of his life up before snatching Reed’s proffered hand. “Merry July Christmas, Malcolm.”

“Happy Easter, Mister Tucker. Race you up the stairs?”

Their laughter echoed through the cottage long after they’d reached the bedroom door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas and good wishes for 2020 to readers everywhere.


End file.
